


remember to deliver

by imperiousheiress



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, Insecure Crowley (Good Omens), Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-13 02:00:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20166295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperiousheiress/pseuds/imperiousheiress
Summary: “Crowley, please!” Aziraphale takes a desperate step forward, just barley holding back from reaching out again lest his touch is spurned once more. “My dear boy, I don’t even know why you’re upset.”Crowley splutters.“Don’t-?” He runs a hand through his hair with a heavy sigh. And, suddenly, he doesn’t look like he’s seconds away from throwing someone off the nearest bridge. He looks… tired. Vulnerable. Small.





	remember to deliver

The door swings loudly open on hinges that squeal in indignation and doesn’t even get the chance to slam loudly closed before it’s being thrown open a second time. Had anyone been looking in on the scene (which, fortunately, no one had) they would have seen a tall, lanky, man-shaped figure stalking through the alleyway towards the road – but not quite making it there before being stopped by a second, shorter, stouter, man-shaped figure. A figure who had haphazardly thrown open the door to bumble after the first and is just now catching up to him.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale calls, one arm outstretched towards his friend, his lover, his _partner_, who has just stormed out in the midst of their evening. “Crowley, _wait._ Please don’t leave!”

Aziraphale catches him by the sleeve of his shirt, holding tight against his pulling. Crowley pulls harder. He yanks his arm free of Aziraphale’s grip and whirls around to face him, eyes burning over the rim of his sunglasses.

“And why shouldn’t I?” he says, voice clipped, brimming with deadly calm.

Aziraphale’s eyes flicker over his face, searching. Still, he comes up empty-handed. Crowley’s expression is stoic, radiating irritation at the edges but offering no further insight into why or how much.

“Just- Just _hold on_ for a moment, would you?” Aziraphale rushes, hands wringing together in front of his diaphragm. “Can’t we talk?”

“_Talk?_” Crowley barks. Aziraphale winces. “I’m going home, angel. If you want to stay, you can hitch a ride with _someone else_.”

“Crowley, please!” Aziraphale takes a desperate step forward, just barley holding back from reaching out again lest his touch is spurned once more. “My dear boy, I don’t even know why you’re upset.”

Crowley splutters.

_“Don’t-?”_ He runs a hand through his hair (it’s been getting longer again recently – Aziraphale’s noticed and he loves it) with a heavy sigh. And, suddenly, he doesn’t look like he’s seconds away from throwing someone off the nearest bridge. He looks… tired. Vulnerable. Small.

“Angel, why did you bring me here?”

Aziraphale’s brow furrows. He’s been attending the monthly open mic night at this café on a semi-regular basis for over a year now and he’s always found them rather pleasant. There are a number of regular attendees who have come to recognize him, despite the fact that he’s never performed himself. Not to mention the _excellent_ selection of pastries offered by the café.

This is, however, the first time he’d asked Crowley to accompany him. Now that they’re what some might call an _item_, it had seemed only right. And, well-

“I-I thought you might enjoy it. Why ever _else_ would I have asked you along?”

“That’s really all?” Crowley asks quietly. Unsure.

Aziraphale can’t help the hurt that flashes across his expression.

“Yes. Of course.” He reaches out, slower this time, and smooths his palms down the front of Crowley’s exceptionally soft flannel. He doesn’t pull away.

With stiff movements (even in the dark, Aziraphale can see the twitching of his fingers) Crowley removes his sunglasses, tucking them in his breast pocket. Aziraphale is alarmed to notice that his eyes are shining. With a small gasp, he immediately cups Crowley’s face in his hands.

“Darling, what’s wrong?” he asks in a hushed voice. “Please tell me.”

“All those other people in there-” Crowley blurts. He stops, biting his lip, but continues before Aziraphale can even prompt him to. “Your _friends-_”

“I don’t know if I’d call them _that_-”

“Well, they all seem to know you _so _well. And they’re- I’m not- I’ll never be like _that_.”

He tries to turn away, but Aziraphale stubbornly holds him in place.

“Like-? Like _what_, Crowley?”

Crowley’s hands flail meaninglessly between them. In another circumstance, it would be cute. (It still is, although Aziraphale’s not really thinking about that at the moment considering he’s busy worrying about the current course of their conversation.)

“_Talented._ Artsy. All- All good with words, and music, and _literature_ and the like.” He huffs, frustration coming through in every twitch, every breath. “All those things that you like. _Everyone_ in there tonight wanted your attention, angel.”

Aziraphale blinks. Yes, he supposes there were quite a few of the café’s regular patrons who had stopped by to have a word with him tonight. Mostly, he thinks, they’d been checking up on him. After all, it _has_ been a couple of months since his last visit, which is rather unusual for him. However, narrowly averting the apocalypse tends to warrant a few months’ vacation from routine, he thinks.

Not that he could tell any of them that.

Still, he had hardly noticed the attention. His focus had been split pretty evenly between the performances taking place on the little stage and the happiness he had felt every time he had glanced over and seen Crowley there, at his side. (That’s a lie- Crowley had undoubtedly taken up much more of his attention that the performers.)

Crowley finally wins out in their silent fight, pulling free of Aziraphale’s grasp to duck his head, rubbing at the back of his neck.

“I can’t offer you that,” he whispers. The quiet confession shatters the air between them and steals the breath from Aziraphale’s lungs.

“Oh, dearest,” he breathes, forcing the words through the knot his heart has twisted around his trachea. “Look at me.”

It’s not a command. It’s a plea. Quiet and uncertain. Because, Aziraphale thinks, if Crowley doesn’t meet his eyes, his frail, too-human body might just give out.

Crowley looks up.

Aziraphale’s not sure when his hands fisted themselves, white-knuckled, into his collar, but he holds onto it now like a lifeline.

“I don’t _need_ that,” he says fiercely, shaking Crowley as if he can inject the truth behind the words straight into him that way. “Are you listening to me? I don’t want that. I want _you_, Crowley.” His voice breaks, but Crowley’s eyes are widening, lighting up with something a little like understanding, and he powers on. “I just wanted to share something I loved with you, because I want to share _everything_ with you, my darling. But it doesn’t really matter. Because I could be anywhere in the universe and I’d be happy – just as long as you were there too.”

“Oh,” says Crowley.

A single tear escapes, slipping down his cheek, but before it can get very far, Aziraphale catches it on his thumb and wipes it away, leaving his hand to hover against Crowley’s skin. He leans in to the touch.

For a moment, they just stand there – on a dimly lit side street behind a café in South London – staring at each other, unmoving.

And then, with a little sniffle, Crowley rubs a hand over his eyes and takes a deep breath.

“’M sorry,” he mumbles. “I ruined your evening over something stupid.”

Aziraphale huffs fondly and drags Crowley close, wrapping him up in his arms. He sinks into the embrace, tucking his face in carefully between Aziraphale’s neck and shoulder where it fits perfectly.

“It _was_ stupid, my dear, for you to doubt for a single second the intensity of my love for you. But you did _not _ruin my evening.” He pauses. “_Our_ evening.”

Crowley pulls back just far enough to meet his eyes, a guilty frown pulling at his lips.

“You sure?”

“_Positive_. I revel in any chance I get to show you off on my arm.” The tips of Crowley’s ears stain crimson and Aziraphale smirks, pleased to have gotten exactly the reaction he’d desired. “And the entertainment we _did_ see was lovely, as always.”

“I’m the one they should be jealous of,” Crowley mumbles, and Aziraphale happily pretends he didn’t hear for the sake of Crowley’s pride, even though they both know he did. “Suppose that cellist was _alright_.”

Aziraphale knows exactly the performance to which he is referring, although he hadn’t personally paid much attention to it. He’d been too busy watching the flickering of emotion across Crowley’s face – the way his eyes had been fixed forward as if in a trance, his knee jiggling along with the rhythm and his head tilted adorably to one side.

“Yes, I think she was new. Although I do hope she’ll come back next month,” Aziraphale muses distractedly, petting down the line of Crowley’s spine, just between his shoulder blades.

“D’you wanna go back inside?” Crowley asks quietly.

Aziraphale hums like he’s considering, even though he already knows exactly what his answer will be. He watches Crowley lazily as he awaits a response. The lines of his face are much less pronounced than they were before, the set of his shoulders not quite so tight. His eyes flicker over Aziraphale’s face, liquid gold under the moonlight.

“No, I don’t think so.” Aziraphale shakes his head, eyes never leaving Crowley’s. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather like to go home. Where I can be alone with your company and remind you how much I _do_ love you. Repeatedly. Because I think, perhaps, I don’t say it enough.”

Crowley doesn’t even try to hide the smile that lights up his face as Aziraphale twines their fingers tightly together. He can’t help but stretch up on his toes to kiss the curve of it.

When he pulls away, chasing Crowley’s lips for a last peck, the expression that greets him is soft and serene, and he can feel his heart fluttering in his chest.

“Love you too, angel,” Crowley says, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. And he kisses him again.

**Author's Note:**

> this was a prompt fill I did for an ask meme on [tumblr! ](http://imperiousheiress.tumblr.com) come say hi!
> 
> EDIT: the loveliest [mutalune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutalune/) was kind enough to podfic this work, and she did an INCREDIBLE job!! please go and listen to her work and drop her some kudos as well!!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [remember to deliver [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21219758) by [mutalune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutalune/pseuds/mutalune)


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